1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to operation support systems for a telecommunication network, particularly administration and maintenance of Stored Program Control (SPC) switching systems.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The operation and administration tasks in telecommunication networks relate essentially to reorganizing, changing and expanding system data, as for instance, the exchange, network, trunk group and subscriber connection data. It is important to be able to organize, modify or erase this data at any time during the operation of a system. The object of maintenance, on the other hand, is to maintain the functionality of a system by purposeful tests and to assure the operational quality of the exchange processes. The operating and maintenance personnel, therefore, must be able to communicate, via an operator station or man-machine interface, with the respective devices of the telecommunications system, where, for the dialogue with the operating and maintenance programs, particular operating procedures are given, as a rule, in an application-oriented command language (e.g., the so-called CCITT-MML or CCITT-Man-Machine Language).
Arrangements known until now for the operation and maintenance of telecommunications systems require extensive documentation, usually reflected in a plurality of manuals. Their content consists as a rule of descriptions of the permitted commands to the system, of the permitted reactions of the system, and of the operating procedures. The latter establish the individual operating and maintenance tasks, consisting of sequences or combinations of commands, must be organized with the simultaneous consideration of the system reactions. The operation of such a system can become very expensive and the danger of introducing errors into the process is substantial.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,506, issued Nov. 1, 1988, to Maximillian Sevcik, describes an operation support system for a Stored Program Controlled (SPC) Telecommunications System, such as a telephone exchange system. The control arrangement is inserted between the exchange and an operator station. The control arrangement comprises a processor, a first memory which contains the operating and maintenance knowledge of the system in the form of the CCITT Specification Language SDL/PR, a second correlation memory containing the definition for the formation of Man-Machine Language (MML) commands to the system and the formal description of the reactions expected from the system and a translator. On the basis of the data in the two memories the translator sends correct and properly structured commands directly to the system (switch) or effectively evaluates the reactions of the system (switch). The arrangement is intended to make possible a paperless operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,517, issued Nov. 1, 1988, to Bernardis et al., teaches a method for generating a response event in a telephone system and response to a request event to control the operation of a plurality of terminating means. This method allows an administrator of a telephone system to provide new service determinations in the telephone network. In order to determine response events (in response to received request events) for controlling the operation of the terminations of a service switch, an interpreter is provided with the plurality of data bases. The interpreter program executing on a processor interprets the request events from the service switch by accessing records within a data base which specifies system response. The patent is directed to a system and method for trialing, modifying and implementing telephone services for a telephone network.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,583, issued Mar. 11, 1986, to Kartalopoulos, describes a programmable digital controller which is used in a telephone system for generating a plurality of instructions. The instructions are used for controlling several machines or processors.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,453, issued Nov. 20, 1990, to Daniel III et al., describes an autonomous expert system for directly maintaining remote telephone switching systems. The expert system accesses a full report from a centralized service reporting center, establishes a data connection to the computer system reporting the fault, gathers data about the reported fault, analyzes the data and recommends maintenance procedures and replacement parts for a technician who the expert system dispatches to the remote system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,683, issued May 30, 1989, to Phillips et al., teaches a computerized system for automating a decision making process and for recording decisions made from that process by formulating a decision record. The system includes a microcomputer which executes a system control program to select information units from a data base.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,661, issued May 31, 1988, to Edelstein et al., describes a circuit for translating predetermined telephone numbers to new digits sequences.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,655,921, issued Apr. 11, 1972, to Busick et al., describes a root translation system arranged to translate a combination of two, three or six numerical digits to a predetermined combination of three numerical digits.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,017,691, issued Apr. 12, 1977, to Altenburger, discloses a number translator, which is designed for converting line equipment number and party identification into directory number and class of service for local originating calls and for converting directory number into line equipment number, ringing code, and called class of service in connection with local terminating traffic.
The conventional, currently used method of making Recent Changes (RC) associated with screening, routing, trunking types and of translating these changes for program controlled switches such as the 1AESS and 5ESS switches involve the translation engineer preparing a packet using a system called the Mechanized Translation System (MTS). The MTS does nothing more than warehouse the data that is associated with the translations used for the switch. It is a records keeping system that defines the contents of the switch itself insofar as routing or translations or charging type information. When the translation engineer determines that a change associated with any of those translations in the switch are necessary he goes into the MTS system and generates a new packet. The packet constitutes a printed set of forms that are instructions which are sent to the Switching Control Center (SCC). The SCC technician who receives the packet from the translation engineer analyzes the packet and manually prepares Recent Changes for the switch. These instructions tell the switch to make a routing change or a route index-type change in the switch. Using the forms the SCC technician manually writes the corresponding switch command language translation changes pursuant to his knowledge and documentation which he has available. The technician then uses a teletype terminal or maintenance terminal connected to the switch via the maintenance channel and types the Recent Changes into the switch.
The process of preparing the recent changes and typing into the switch may take several days. As an example a packet that contains 1,000 Recent Changes may take the technician two weeks in conjunction with his other activities.